Neat way to hatch clown eggs!

[tooshay]

I saw a thread on a breeders forum explaining this, so I gave it a try....
My clowns laid their eggs on a rock that was impossible to remove. The night that I thought they were going to hatch, I siphoned them out by attaching airline tubing to a straw and using the straw to scrape them off of the rock. I then put them in a vase that was tulip shaped and held 500cc. I put airling tubing in the bottom and adjusted the flow to keep the eggs rolling gently (Kind of like hatching brine shrimp in a 2 liter bottle). Well...Voila'!! In the morning, the whole vase was full of swimming fish Every egg had hatched! I then put them into the waiting larval tank and added rotifers and greenwater. They are all eating and have full silver bellies. Just thought I would share, because all literature I have read said it couldn't be done!

 

[Slakker]

That is pretty cool. Congrats!

 

[davocean]

Way cool!
Pics.

 

[tooshay]

Here are some pics of the set up...

This is the eggs right after harvesting:

Here is the vase set-up:

 

[davocean]

That is so cool, what type of clowns?

 

[tooshay]

I didn't really have the room to explain the WHOLE thing...A friend had a tomato pair that laid the eggs on a rock. I told her about this idea, but she was going on vacation and couldn't raise the fry. So...she scraped them off and brought them to me in a mason jar. I started them percolating, then scraped some of my Onyx percula eggs and added them to the vase. I honestly didn't think any of them would hatch, so now I have a larval tank with mixed fry. I can't tell which is which, so I will separate them when they get old enough to tell them apart

 

[nurseturk]

Thanks for all the new info.!! I am having the same problem with my clowns. Will try to scrape off the eggs using this tech. and thanks for all the pics.!!

 

[dc]

That's pretty cool. Good luck with them.

 

[dalilgriffith]

i'd like to see how this pans out in the long run. Also id like to see a step by step on how you accomplished this with fragile eggs.

 

[tooshay]

Thinking that clownfish eggs are fragile, I really didn't think they would hatch after such rough treatment. In the forum that I read, the guy used the straw to cut the thread that attaches the egg to the rock. My nest was at the bottom of my 28 inch deep tank, so I could barely reach them. I started the siphon and literally just scraped them off of the rock. Any that floated away were prompltly eaten by mama clown. I was shocked beyond belief when I woke up the next morning and found that they had hatched! I'm sure it isn't the ideal way to hatch them, but for people who want to raise the fry but can't remove the nest at least they have another option.

 

[MarinaP]

Way too cool. If this works for me and Scott, we might have CB gasters and caps

 

[nate4546]

Why don't you use a larvae collecter?

 

[tooshay]

I was just going to let the eggs hatch in the tank and be food, but when I read about this method, I thought I would try it. I knew the eggs were going to hatch that night and I had no time to even think about making a larval snagger.

 

[rkelman]

Very cool Tooshay. I saw the thread you are referring to as well. He used a glass funnel but your method obviously works also. Have you thought of using the fish bowl to feed them? That is as innovative as this hatching method as far as I'm concerned. (and probably more important for good survival rates) What about temperature? Doesn't the water get down to like 70degrees overnight?

 

[tooshay]

The water was pretty cold in the morning, but the fry didn't seem to be affected. You could always put the vase/funnel in a bigger container partially filled with water and place a heater and small powerhead in it to circulate the water to keep it warm.

 

[rkelman]

Interesting. So you just brought the temp up in the larvae tank with a small heater?

 

[tooshay]

I didn't use a heater at all when hatching the eggs since I am in south Florida. I had to separate my older babies due to fighting, and I put 4 tupperware containers(With the clownfish in them) in a 10 gallon tank 1/2 filled with water. I put a heater and powerhead in the 10 gallon and the warm water circulated around the tupperware to keep all 4 warm. I didn't have 4 heaters, so this set-up works perfectly for me.

 

[tooshay]

I had to separate the clowns quickly. The tomato clowns were beating up my percs when they were not yet 1 week old. Here are a few shots of them:
Tomato

Percs

 

[rkelman]

Its funny. A week old and they are already bullies

 

[Jovreefer]

Well there is more than one way to do everything. lol and people say its hard to raise clown fish. Here you are scraping the eggs off a rock & raising week old babies in a tuperware container.